As a
rule, the young birds raised a clamour of welcome when their parents
came near, but on this day they were so full of dragon-meat that they
had no choice, they had to go to sleep.

As they flew nearer, the old birds saw the prince lying under the tree
and no sign of life in the nest. They thought that the misfortune
which for so many earlier years had befallen them had again happened
and that their nestlings had disappeared. They had never been able to
find out the murderer, and now suspected the prince. 'He has eaten our
children and sleeps after it; he must die,' said the father-bird, and
flew back to the hills and clawed up a huge stone which he meant to
let fall on the prince's head. But his mate said, 'Let us look into
the nest first for to kill an innocent person would condemn us at the
Day of Resurrection.' They flew nearer, and presently the young birds
woke and cried, 'Mother, what have you brought for us?' and they told
the whole story of the fight, and of how they were alive only by the
favour of the young man under the tree, and of his cutting up the
dragon and of their eating it. The mother-bird then remarked, 'Truly,
father! you were about to do a strange thing, and a terrible sin has
been averted from you.' Then the Simurgh flew off to a distance with
the great stone and dropped it. It sank down to the very middle of the
earth.

Coming back, the Simurgh saw that a little sunshine fell upon the
prince through the leaves, and it spread its wings and shaded him till
he woke. When he got up he salaamed to it, who returned his greeting
with joy and gratitude, and caressed him and said: 'O youth, tell me
true! who are you, and where are you going? And how did you cross that
pitiless desert where never yet foot of man had trod?' The prince told
his story from beginning to end, and finished by saying: 'Now it is my
heart's wish that you should help me to get to Waq of the Caucasus.
Perhaps, by your favour, I shall accomplish my task and avenge my
brothers.' In reply the Simurgh first blessed the deliverer of his
children, and then went on: 'What you have done no child of man has
ever done before; you assuredly have a claim on all my help, for every
year up till now that dragon has come here and has destroyed my
nestlings, and I have never been able to find who was the murderer and
to avenge myself. By God's grace you have removed my children's
powerful foe. I regard you as a child of my own. Stay with me; I